McKee Qualifies for U23 World Championships

Akron, Ohio – For the second straight year, the University of Minnesota’s Mitch McKee will represent the United States at the U23 World Championships, with the 2018 location being Bucharest, Romania.

McKee, who will be a junior for the Gophers in 2018, went into the tournament as the No. 1 seed and did not experience any hiccups along the way to his 8-0 record in Akron Ohio.

The eight participating Gophers experienced a lot of success in Akron, with Carson Brolsma finishing in fifth place, Skyler Petry added a sixth-place finish and Steve Polakowski in eighth place.

There was some star power along the way for McKee. He took down an All-American in Kaid Brock, who are quite familiar with each other with many battles in both freestyle and folkstyle over their wrestling careers. This time McKee got the best of Brock with an impressive 1:23 tech of the fifth-place finish at 133-pounds in 2018.

McKee went on to dominate Dom Demas, who wrestles for Oklahoma, in the finals of the 65-kilogram bracket with a 9-6 victory and a 10-0 technical superiority. McKee has now made the U23 finals for three straight years and has won each of the past two.

Brolsma would pick up wins against two quality NCAA opponents in Josh Shields, who was an All-American for Arizona State this season, and John Van Brill of Rutgers who was a round of 12 finisher in 2018.

It was a magnificent start for Petry, but an injury in the semifinals would ultimately drop him to sixth place, but not before picking up a win over Travis Piotrowski, who was an NCAA qualifier for Illinois in 2018.

It was also a nine-match weekend for Steve Polakowski, who finished with a 6-3 record along the way to an eighth-place finish. He wrestled back in the consolation bracket, winning five matches before falling in the consolation round of four.

There were some other notable performances in Akron. Chase O’Connor made some noise at 97-kilograms, he took down the No. 5 seed Jake Boyd and reaching the quarterfinals before running into some trouble. He would finish with a 2-2 record.

Other Gopher wrestlers to take part in Akron were Steve Bleise (3-2), Brandon Krone (2-2) and Ben Brancale (2-2).

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